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Strongest lineup of non-coaster attractions in the UK?

Matt N

Matt N

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Hi guys. Among enthusiasts living in the UK, a common criticism of many of the country’s major theme parks is that they are too coaster-orientated; many believe that the parks lack variety, and don’t have much to do aside from coasters. So today, I pose a question to you all; in your opinion, which UK theme park has the strongest lineup of attractions that aren’t roller coasters?

As for my answer to this question; this may actually be somewhat controversial to some, but I’m actually going to go with Legoland Windsor.

This may seem like an odd choice, but let me explain myself a little.

In my opinion, the park has a very strong selection of dark rides; they’ve got 5, and I’ve done 3 of them (missing Laser Raiders & Lego City Deep Sea Adventure). Of the 3 I’ve done, I’d personally argue that Ninjago & Sky Lion are an epic one-two punch of dark rides (and quite possibly two of my very favourite UK dark rides, with only Hex really coming close to them), and while it lacks the drama & ambience of Hex, Haunted House Monster Party is still a really good, fun Madhouse!

The park also has 3 water rides, and while I haven’t done any of LLW’s water rides, Vikings River Splash & Pirate Falls look to provide a strong one-two punch of water rides, and Hydra’s Challenge and the water play areas round out the selection quite nicely.

There’s also a fair number of family flat rides, and if we take the definition of the term “attraction” more loosely than just rides, then the park also has Miniland and a fair abundance of shows!

But do you agree with me? Which UK park do you think has the strongest selection of non-coaster attractions?
 
Interesting idea for a topic @Matt N .
Know most of our 'big parks' are focused on coasters as they pull the crowds so I'm affraid a lot of these excluding Legoland which has already been mentioned.
Drayton Manor has a decent selection of flat rides at the moment but who knows whats happening to that. They also have a few dark rides.
Pleasurewood hills has a decent selection of flat rides and a dark ride.
Adventure Island does have a decent selection of coasters however they have a good selection of flat rides some build inhouse making them even more interesting. They also have a few dark rides.
Personally I can't pick out of these so lets just say they have all got decent selections but no where near where they should be.
 
Come on Matt...Blackpool!
All those dark rides, the Flying Machines and train, Valhalla and another flume, as well as Dora's world voyage...and tailspin on the dodgems in the rain.
Clear winner.
Any other choice is the wrong one!
 
I'm going to throw Adventure Island into the ring as they have some of the most intense flats in the UK! :)
Drayton also have a pretty good non-coaster selection as well.
 
I think Legoland is a good example! They only have 3 coasters but a still a really solid ride lineup. Flight of the Sky Lion, Deep Sea Adventure, Haunted House are all great dark rides (although I'm really not a fan of Ninjago). :)
 
AstroDan said:
Ninjago is absolutely dreadful!
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Each to their own, I guess!

I know that screen-based dark rides aren’t for everyone, but I actually really enjoyed Ninjago, personally! I’ll admit I was sceptical on how well the hand gesture tech would work, but I actually thought it was very clever and worked really well (even if it was slightly tiring on the hands by the end), and I thought the ride system was really good and very dynamic! The 3D also worked very well and added another layer into the immersion, and there were also some nice physical effects as well, such as smoke effects and air blasts!

Overall, I thought it was a really well put together, fun attraction, personally, and me & my parents all came off with smiles on our faces; surely that is a better indicator of personal enjoyment than any other, is it not? I’d honestly be inclined to say that it’s among my very favourite UK dark rides, although I seem to be in a minority there…

In fairness, however, I should preface this by saying that I’ve never personally had an issue with screens/3D on dark rides like a lot of enthusiasts seem to; as much as I love a pure, physical theming-based dark ride as much as the next person, some of the Universal screen-based dark rides, such as Spiderman, Gringotts and Transformers, are some of my favourite dark rides of all time. If you don’t like screens, then I can imagine you wouldn’t really be a fan of Ninjago.
 
Blackpool Pleasure Beach for 1st, then maybe Adventure Island and Legoland Windsor can battle it out for 2nd and 3rd but I literally can’t think of any others to put forward.
 
Danscott22 said:
Blackpool Pleasure Beach for 1st, then maybe Adventure Island and Legoland Windsor can battle it out for 2nd and 3rd but I literally can’t think of any others to put forward.
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This thread is depressing. Why don’t U.K. park operators grasp that support rides are an absolute necessity - Towers (the UKs supposed premier theme park) being the worst offender
 
The title of the thread asks for strongest non coaster lineup, not biggest lineup. Which means it can't be LLW for me as it's just quantity over quality.

It may have 5 dark rides. But that laser thingy is so rubbish it's possibly worse than Duel or even Tomb Blaster. As for Ninjago - well if I played Wii Sports in my living room with one of my kids pushing me around on an office chair I'd have the following benefits over it - 1. not have to pay Merlin for it, 2. not have to queue for it and 3. My living room TV has pretty wallpaper behind it as opposed to plain concrete. I suppose I could strip the wallpaper off if I wanted the full experience.

Granted I haven't been on the new flying theatre yet which does look good. But when I think of LLW I think of queues for rides, queues to get in and out of the car park, sub par dark rides and a large collection of dull and insufficiently low capacity off the shelf flats tarted up with Lego bricks as theming to disguise them. And yet the punters can't wait to hand over fist fulls of cash to subject their young family to such an ordeal because the park has a Lego IP attached to it.

Meanwhile, up in Blackpool, it smashes anything most other parks in the UK has to offer in terms of a non coaster lineup. There's not a signal dark ride that I've been on at LLW that comes close to Valhalla or Wallace and Gromit. Even the off the shelf rides at Blackpool do a better job of it than Lego and they also have some high throughput rides to soak up the crowds so you don't have to endure the misery of queueing half an hour plus for a ride you could walk on at your local fun fayre or any other theme park.

It's very sad however that we're hardly spoilt for choice here. In a country where it rains all the time, there's very few high quality dark rides. In a country where your local council will send you a threatening letter because Dorris from number 42 grassed you up for leaving your bin out 1 day late after collection - let alone being able to achieve the miracle of being able to get planning permission to build a roller coaster, the flat ride collection is pretty weak in the UK too. Extra tragic when you consider that Towers - the UK's biggest and most "premier" theme park - wouldn't even feature in my top 5 of parks boasting non coaster attraction's were I to make a list.
 
JAperson said:
Drayton could quite easily be top tear again. If they do something in the pirates adventure building, in the old excalibur site and a few new flat rides.
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Sorry to go off topic but will go back on to it. Part of Excalibur lake has already been filled in for a storage and maintenance area also there’s plans to make the zoo bigger with filling in parts of the lake zoo side for a lemur walk thou attraction.
https://www.draytontalk.co.uk/threads/29/

Anyway back on to subject I think it has got to be Blackpool as it’s got dark rides, classic rides, flat rides and a water ride but as a theme park I do think it’s Drayton Manor as it’s got the best kids area for rides, lots of flat rides, when it reopens the best themed rapids and a couple of dark rides.
 
rob666 said:
Come on Matt...Blackpool!
All those dark rides, the Flying Machines and train, Valhalla and another flume, as well as Dora's world voyage...and tailspin on the dodgems in the rain.
Clear winner.
Any other choice is the wrong one!
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Got to agree with @rob666 (anyone would think I am a Blackpool Pleasure Beach fan)

Blackpool is the only UK park where you can have a day out as an adult without kids and not go on any coasters. I reckon there are at least a good 12 non coaster rides you can go on and not get any funny looks...

Ice Blast, Valhalla (when it reopens), Derby Racer, Flying Machines, Alice, Ghost Train, River Caves, Wallace & Gromit, Train, Airbender, Dodgems, SkyForce. (and possibly a couple of others too)

As for Legoland Windsor, I can honestly say that for me it is the worst park I have been to by some distance. Overpriced, too busy and not enough to do for anyone over the age of about 8 . It's basically Gulliver's with lego.
 
For flat rides you could have Thorpe in 4th place maybe. But for dark rides it would be Alton Towers just ahead of Chessington.

It is almost surprising that if you take away coasters (which there are a lot of) at Blackpool Pleasure Beach there are still plenty of decent rides and four pretty decent dark rides.
 
I don’t know why Legoland has never realised they are basically UKs “Magic Kingdom” and they they need the high throughput omnimover rides or boat rides like the Magic Kingdom to deal with capacity.
 
jon81uk said:
I don’t know why Legoland has never realised they are basically UKs “Magic Kingdom” and they they need the high throughput omnimover rides or boat rides like the Magic Kingdom to deal with capacity.
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Didn’t Merlin’s attendance figures show that Alton Towers reclaimed the title of UK’s most visited theme park in about 2018?

But I certainly agree with your point. Although Legoland does have a few rather high-capacity rides, allegedly, and in fairness, rides aren’t really the main draw to Legoland.
 
Matt N said:
Didn’t Merlin’s attendance figures show that Alton Towers reclaimed the title of UK’s most visited theme park in about 2018?

But I certainly agree with your point. Although Legoland does have a few rather high-capacity rides, allegedly, and in fairness, rides aren’t really the main draw to Legoland.
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Yes but in terms of the ride hardware and the age group aimed at, Legoland has a lot more in common with Magic Kingdom even if they are only the second most popular attraction in the UK. At least Alton Towers mainly installs full size coasters so high capacity, only "mistake" is Gangsta Granny in terms of capacity.

Whereas Legoland really should have built Sky Lion with two theatres and the park is just lacking in the sort of high throughput stuff like onmimover dark rides.
 
jon81uk said:
Yes but in terms of the ride hardware and the age group aimed at, Legoland has a lot more in common with Magic Kingdom even if they are only the second most popular attraction in the UK. At least Alton Towers mainly installs full size coasters so high capacity, only "mistake" is Gangsta Granny in terms of capacity.

Whereas Legoland really should have built Sky Lion with two theatres and the park is just lacking in the sort of high throughput stuff like onmimover dark rides.
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Ah, I get what you mean! My dad actually said that he felt Legoland was the closest thing we have here in the UK to the Orlando theme parks, due to the high quantity of dark rides and heavy theming, and I don’t disagree with him, actually!

In terms of ways that they could integrate high capacity rides, maybe they could go for that Lego Factory trackless that New York has (1,440pph according to ETF)? Or maybe a nice high capacity, middle-ground family coaster, like Polar X-Plorer in Billund (if it’s anything like Thirteen, it’ll presumably attain comfortably over 1,000pph)?
 
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